Ingram's Magazine: February 2014

From K–12 levels to community colleges, private liberal-arts colleges and public research universities, we’ve seen the very best of what the region has to offer in teachers, professors and administrators. There’s always a touch of poignancy, though, in realizing that…more

Years ago, when a consumer needed a product or service, they went to the Yellow Pages. Items were listed in alphabetical order, and they picked from whoever was listed. Remember all those companies called A1, AAAA or APlus Services? Businesses…more

The key players have long since moved on to that Great Operating Room in the Sky, so the trials and tribulations of building a health-care infrastructure in early Kansas City are known but to the special archive collections and libraries…more

Roughly 25 years ago, a kind of economic-development fever broke out in cities across the nation. Inspired by the success of the Triangle Park research center in North Carolina, civic officials began to ask: Why not here? The goal of…more

In 2012, patient revenues at Excelsior Springs Hospital came to a little more than $50 million. That’s but a rounding error when compared with overall revenues of $3.53 billion at the region’s 800-pound health-care gorilla, the University of Kansas Hospital.…more

They might seem unrelated developments, coming as they did at different times, in different business sectors, in different countries—even on different continents. But if you think of each of these developments as a piece on a chessboard, you start to…more

In last month’s Ingram’s Industry Outlook general assembly, as we plotted the future of metro Kansas City around the needs and wants of its younger residents, it slowly dawned on those gathered that we had no real idea what those…more

“They get bids for everything and always take the lowest bid.”“They send out an RFP and I can never speak to the deci-sion-maker.” “We’re becoming a commodity. All they do is take the lowest bid.”“It’s the government. They have to…more

True story: Earlier this month, as the U.S. men’s hockey team was skating against the Russians at the Winter Olympics, I was at the new Dierberg’s grocery store at the Lake of the Ozarks. There were eight other men who,…more

Kansas City has always been a transportation hub, thanks to its central location, its position on major east-west and north-south interstate highways, the presence of large transportation companies, Kansas City International Airport, and its “bustling” intermodal activity. As such, when…more

Since the 2007–09 recession, we’ve seen a trend among U.S. companies to evaluate their total landed costs when making supply-chain decisions. An analysis to find business advantages from the supply chain takes into consideration all supply-chain expenses, including manufacturing, sourcing,…more